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There are limited food options when you're surrounded by sand and ocean. Unless you plan on harpooning yourself some fish or trepidatiously hitting up the concession stand, you'll be left hungry and hot. The hungry, of course, being worse than the hot. Which is why you should pack your own beach eats—foods best eaten sitting on a beach towel to a chorus of crashing waves.

Cool down with sparkling rhubarb lemonade tinged with mint, savor a soy sauce egg while taking in the scenery, and/or (but, really, and) bite into a baguette stuffed with slices of Spanish tortilla and slathered with aioli. The choice of beach eats is yours. Here are 15 shore-fire recipes that can't be beat.

Deviled eggs seasoned and topped with Old Bay (press two together to transport and serve), crackers to be spread with Braunschweiger sausage and topped with very thinly sliced red onion, cherries, grapes, frozen chewy chocolate chip cookies, wine, beer,water. Italian subs on other days. Sometimes cold shrimp with dipping sauce.

My most spectacular beach supper ever involved making a fire to cook on ... we grilled marinated salmon, shrimp and huge ocean scallops on the fire, along with foil packets of cooked vermicelli mixed with olive oil and basil pesto that we put right in the coals. Dumped the pasta in a big serving dish and put the seafood on top ... the pasta had these wonderful crunchy bits around the edge, and everything was wonderfully smoky. One of my best meals ever!!

Sounds spectacular! One of my best was making dungeness crabcakes on the Oregon coast over an open fire. My daughter, husband and I had a smoky dinner that night, cooked over driftwood. Daughter decided crabcakes were definitely worthwhile, as is tidepooling.

Mmmn, this all looks great! But one thing I always want when glorying in a long hot beach afternoon, is juicy, cold, 'poppable' fruit. We always bring grapes or cut up bites of watermelon or pineapple and keep them next to the ice packs in the cooler until about 2:30...